Based in Berlin, the research center “Episteme in Motion: Transfer of Knowledge from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period” brought together international scholarship to counter a narrative that continues to present the Scientific Revolution as a victory over outdated models of knowledge rooted in Aristotelian natural philosophy. To that effect, the authors of this volume provide a multitude of case studies showing how—under the theological and epistemological authority of Philipp Melanchthon—Protestant universities, from the Renaissance to the early Enlightenment, transformed traditional knowledge by reconciling Aristotelian concepts with Copernican cosmology, Ramism, Neoplatonism, and Cartesianism. Focused mainly on German scholars and their European knowledge networks, the thirteen articles of this collection range from analysis of Melanchthon's theologically informed and anthropocentric natural philosophy and its influence on medicine, mathematics, chemistry, and astronomy (a key chapter by Pietro Omodeo and Jonathan Régier) to the reception of heliocentrism and the debate about the nature of comets (Stefano Gulizia, Anna Jerratsch, Miguel Ángel Grenada).
After Günter Frank's engaging discussion of Philippist Lutheranism, which superimposed Platonic and Stoic ideas on Aristotelian natural philosophy to define nature as the mirror of divine revelation, there are two interesting excursions into religious heterodoxy. Fulfilling the editorial team's promise to pay attention to the confessional impetus behind science, Sascha Salatowsky and Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer analyze European anti-Trinitarian (Socinian) networks, whose materialism made their movement more receptive to heliocentric ideas. Socinians debunked not only the notion of comets being “messengers of evil” (173), but also geocentrism, together with belief in miracles, prodigies, and astrology. Contextualizing the reactions to the comet of 1577 among the circles around the Hungarian humanist Andreas Dudith, a convert from Catholicism with anti-Trinitarian sympathies, Mahlmann-Bauer concludes that the influence of Aristotelian cosmology significantly diminished in Dudith's work, yet did not completely vanish. Most notably, however, radical Protestants combined their defense of religious toleration with anti-astrological arguments and a call for the strict separation of science and theology, throwing the Enlightenment's later progress narrative into confusion.
Other contributions are dedicated to the debates between followers of Galenic medicine and Paracelsianism, including three articles on the alchemist Andreas Libavius (ca. 1555–1616), whose 1597 textbook on chemistry relied on sober empiricism, cleansed of theological speculation (Volkhard Wels). Bruce Moran showcases Libavius's efforts to define chemistry on the basis of the technical skills it requires and its epistemological character as an art, while Elisabeth Moreau vividly presents the alchemist's defense of medicine against Paracelsian ideas. Libavius's reliance on Aristotle, Galen, Melanchthon, and Ramus helped to give chemistry and medicine the necessary didactic foundations to shape them into respectable disciplines without discarding the authority of scripture and providential theology.
In all of this, Aristotelianism remains a fixed point of reference. Rarely, as in Salatowsky's excursion on Francisco Suárez, however, is its impact clearly explained in action. Instead we get to know what Libavius, Erastus, the Socinians, and others—from a variety of different theological positions—could most agree on: their critique of Paracelsian and hermetic approaches to natural philosophy. Bernd Roling's exposition of works by the professor of medicine Johann Hannemann (1640–1724) and other followers of Paracelsus provides a comprehensive introduction to the Swiss humanist's ideas which remained attractive to seekers of the so-called philosopher's stone even 250 years after his death.
Despite its impact on institutional academic traditions, Aristotelianism finally started to wear thin. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, mathematicians increasingly rebelled against their low status, since the Stagirite had classified their discipline as a composite of allegedly auxiliary subjects, such as geometry, optics, and mechanics, considering it no match to physics or metaphysics. Grenada's presentation of the debate between Barthel Keckermann and the mathematician Christoph Hunichius about the novas of 1572 and 1600, as well as the comet of 1577, shows that the Scientific Revolution eventually elevated mathematicians’ role. This complements Stefano Gulizia's focus on the university of Helmstedt and its Baltic connections, including Denmark's Tycho Brahe, whose geo-heliocentric model reflected the compromise between the ancients and the moderns. The last two chapters focus on learned academies, such as the Leopoldina in Schweinfurt, where the “polyphony of voices” (121) evoked less controversy than in universities (Simon Rebohm). Cartesianism in French universities was first championed by physicists, after entering scholarly debate through the academies’ prize competitions (Martin Urmann).
With its nuanced case studies, this collection holds great appeal to specialists and general readers curious to learn about the origins of modern science. In the longue durée, ideas about the world and the universe did not change upon the intervention of a few lonely geniuses, but thanks to religious and institutional networks, and continuous exchange between the old and the new.
